As I read Watchmen, I kept trying to figure out who the heroes were. It was, after all, originally a comic book, so didn’t it have to present a morally enhancing solution or lesson to the thematic dilemma? The more I read, the more apparent the paradox became: Did the crowed frames reflect intense involvement or overuse of plot? Was there loneliness or just isolation?
Then the answer came from the source itself, in Elizabeth Rosen’s article on “Nostalgia.” In it Alan Moore considered the effect of violence on the genre and concluded “‘Look, you know, get over Watchmen, get over the 1980’s.’ It doesn’t have to be depressing, miserable grimness from now until the end of time. It was only a bloody comic. It wasn’t a jail sentence.”
So why do we take the Cold War/exploding alien invader story to heart? Well, “Superheroes are still an excellent vehicle for the Imagination…” (Moore). And, while implausible, the multilayered personalities of the Minutemen, Crimebusters, and friends, do present as a modern-day pseudo/psycho drama as warped as today’s headlines and crime shows.
Except for the easy going Hollis Mason and Dan Dreiberg, Nite Owls #1 and #2, these characters are conflicted as a result of their childhoods and the experiences in the terrifying, bloody streets of American in 1985. Here Rorschach play right into the Social Services Department in any big city. Through choice, but mainly chance, come into the system as children and remain in it, maybe forever, from welfare to rehab, and eventually to the criminal justice system. Abused as a child, Walter Kovacs careens from a 10-year old who bites another child in the face to an uncompromising vigilante.
Maintaining the blade-sharp insight, but turning from the position of victim to avenger, Rorschach commits some of the most horrendous scenes in the novel as he is fighting against crime. He and the Comedian became notorious examples of why 1977 Keene Act had to be passed in order to preserve the rights of the yet unconvicted. The shifting mask on his face is ironic as Rorschach is inflexible and while he knows submitting his journal will finish humanity’s faith in himself, he does it anyway and meets his own gory end. Really? Would you tell?